IDEAL PROTEIN DIET Full Review: Pros & Cons (Is It Worth It?)

For the purpose of weight loss, many diets have come and gone. However, the Ideal Protein Diet is different~ due to its effective methods, it has stayed popular among people since 2004, the time when it was created.

It focuses on getting individuals to reach the state of ketosis through a high protein, low carbohydrate, and fat diet, where the body starts using body fat as energy.

In this context, I will dive into what the Ideal Protein Diet offers and the principles, mechanisms & science behind it.

How Does the IDEAL PROTEIN Diet Work?

The ideal protein is formulated very cleverly. It uses two main strategies to effectively burn fat through ketosis and preserve muscle mass with high-protein foods.

I will break down both of them individually and explain their role in this program.

Ketosis

Typically your body uses glucose after breaking down carbrohydrate from the food you eat as the main source of energy.

So what happens when you start limiting carbohydrates from your diet? There won’t be enough glucose production to keep your body running.

Once the glycogen stores become depleted, the body turns to fat stores for energy production instead.

Fatty acids are released from your fats around the body and are taken to your liver. The liver breaks them down into smaller chunks known as ketones (hence the name ketosis)

The ketones then can be used by other tissues and organs such as muscles to meet their energy demand.

In this case, your body relies on ketones by burning fat stores, therefore helping you lose weight.

High Protein

Eating high-protein food also plays a significant role in your weight loss efforts.

During weight loss, there is a risk of losing not only fat but muscle mass as well and eating an adequate amount of protein can help preserve your muscles.

The reason why you want this is that because compared to fat, muscle requires more energy to sustain it.Therefore, having lean muscle mass leads to your body burning more calories daily, without you having to do anything.

Whenever you consume food, it expends a certain amount of energy to digest it known as the thermic effect of food (TEF).Now protein has a higher TEF than other macronutrients~ it uses around 20-30% of the calories from the consumed protein during digestion and absorption. This allows you to burn extra calories from just consuming high-protein foods.

Key Components Of The IDEAL PROTEIN Diet

The ideal protein diet is split into three phases, each with a specific purpose and dietary focus These phases are designed to gradually adapt your body to the new changes.

Here are the three phases

Phase 1– Weight Loss

This first step is the most restrictive and focuses on rapid weight loss.

You will primarily consume pre-packaged ideal protein products, which are high in protein and low in carbs & fats.

The goal is to reach the ketosis state where the body shifts from using glucose for energy to burning stored fat.

During this phase, you will typically eat three to four small meals per day, including your own pre-cooked foods, supplements, and selective vegetables.

This phase lasts until you have reached your desired goal.

Phase 2– Stabilization

Phase two starts once you have reached your desired weight goal.

In this stage, you will begin to transition away from relying solely on Ideal protein products and start gradually introducing carbohydrates and fats back into your diet.

It will encourage you to focus on lean proteins, vegetables, and healthy fats~ sticking mainly to whole foods and staying away from junk foods.

You will receive a personalized macro code, which will give you a set amount of carbohydrates, fats, and net carbs to consume daily to prevent weight gain.

The duration of this phase is 14 days, but it can be extended depending on your weight loss goals.

Phase 3– Maintenance

At this stage, you should have achieved your ideal weight and understood how to maintain your weight through healthy eating.

The goal of this stage is to make a plan for long-term weight maintenance while giving you more freedom than the other phases and allowing you to eat some foods that you desire.

Foods You Can Expect To Eat In Ideal Protein Diet Phase 1

Your phase 1 is the most restrictive out of the 3 phases. It gets you to eat 3 prepared meals, made from their company for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Supplements

Since you will be restricting what you eat, you can become deficient in certain nutrients. Therefore you are told to take certain supplements at certain times:

Once a day– a quarter teaspoon of salt and 2 antioxidant pills.
For every meal– 1 digestive enzyme pill.
Breakfast– 1 potassium pill with 1 multivitamin.
Lunch– 1 multivitamin and 1 omega-3 plus
Snack– 2 calcium-magnesium pills.
Dinner– 2 omega-3 plus and 2 calcium-magnesium pills.

Protein

You get a range of proteins to choose from, which adds variety to your dish: here are some of the choices:

Veal
Beef
Seafood
Poultry
Tofu
Pork

Vegetables

For vegetables, there are two categories you get to pick:

First is labeled as raw vegetable which you can have an unlimited amount.

Another one is labeled as selective vegetables~ for which you can only consume 4 cups per day.

Raw vegetable examples:

Lettuce
Watercress
Spinach
Celery
Arugula

Selective vegetables (4 cups per day) examples:

Bell peppers
Broccoli
Turnip
Bamboo shoot
Rhubarb

Make sure to measure out the vegetables properly to ensure you don’t over consume carbohydrates.

Oil

As the fat content needs to stay low, you need to pay extra attention to your oil usage. You should aim to use only 2 tablespoons per day.

According to Healthline, here are 4 healthier oils to cook with:

Olive oil
Avocado oil
Sesame oil
Safflower oil

Seasoning

There is not a lot of restriction when it comes to seasoning. Therefore you can take advantage of mixing and matching seasoning to add a different twist to your dishes:

Soya sauce
Cinnamon
Lemongrass
Dill
Bay leaves
Rosemary
Garlic

Phase 2 & 3

I added this in this section as well because, after phase 1, there are not a lot of changes. The only difference is you slowly add more fats and carbohydrates to your diet.

This means you can start eating things like:

Bread
Pasta
Dairy
High-carbohydrate fruits (banana, mango, and pineapple)

Ideal Protein Products

Ideal Protein has a plethora of different products to choose from~ meals to snacks and even drinks, they got you covered.

In this section, I will give you guys a few examples of what you can expect when you sign up with them.

Snacks

Even though you are trying to lose weight, this doesn’t mean that you have to completely stop snacking.

They provide you with both sweet & savory snacks that both taste great and fit your macros.

Sweet snack:

Apple cinnamon puffs
Lemon wafers
Triple chocolate wafers
Vanilla crispy square
Vanilla pudding mix

Savory snack

Barbecue crisps
Sweet & spicy trail mix
Nacho cheese dorados
Sea salt crisps
Pizza curls

Protein bar

Protein bars are a great snack to munch on during the day while staying in a ketosis state:

Here are some flavors:

Mint chocolate
Cookie dough
Chocolate coconut
Cranberry pomegranate
Caramel peanut

Meals

You get a variety of premade meals to choose from. Each meal is perfectly balanced with the right amounts of macronutrients & calories for you to start losing weight.

This saves you time from having to cook and prepare each meal with macronutrients in mind.

Here are some dishes from the menu:

Cheesy rotini pasta
Chicken patty
Chili (vegetable or meat)
Macaroni and cheese
Creamy parmesan pasta

Drinks

As most enjoyable drinks are high in sugar, it’s advised not to add them during phase 1 and maybe phase 2 also.

However, there are many low calories & sugar drinks out there that taste amazing~ some of which ideal protein can provide you with:

Peach & mango mix
Vanilla smoothie
Berry & pomegranate mix
Piña colada smoothie
Cappuccino smoothie

How Much Does Ideal Protein Diet Cost?

The overall cost of the ideal protein diet can vary depending on several factors:

Initial consultation– This may be a one-time fee or be included in the overall program cost. During this, you’ll meet with a licensed healthcare professional or a certified coach to review your health status and goals to create a suitable plan.

Program fee– The fee will cover the coaching, education, and support that you’ll receive throughout the whole process. The cost will depend on your location and the level of support required.

Ideal protein products– The cost of it will depend on the amount of pre-packaged products you purchase and consume on a daily basis.

Supplements– Ideal Protein asks every individual to take supplements during phase one, as this is when you will be cutting out most foods from your diet. You can ignore this and save money by not buying any supplement, but I would not recommend it, due to the high chance of becoming deficient in essential nutrients and becoming sick.

Based on their website the average cost for food and supplements is $21 per day or $588 per month.

This excludes the cost of the program fees and consultation fees so the overall price can be quite expensive for certain individuals.

Reviews From The Customers

While looking at comments from people about an ideal protein diet, it seems the majority of people were happy with the results.

The structured plan helped them lose significant amounts of weight in a short amount of time.

However, there were also negative comments left behind.

They most raised concern about the cost being on the higher side compared to other weight loss programs.

Another concern brought up was that some individuals gained some weight back after they started going back to their normal lives, which is one of the downfalls of restrictive diets.

Once you start indulging in your comfort foods, you are likely to gain weight.

Therefore, you should still stay wary of what foods you eat and also partake in some regular physical activities.

Benefits Of Ideal Protein Diet

Rapid Weight Loss With Preservation Of Lean Muscle Mass

With the first phase getting you to cut down most of your carbohydrate and fat content, your body will start running out of glycogen stores. When you have more glucose than needed, the body stores it in the liver and muscle as glycogen.

Once your body runs out of these stores, it begins to produce ketones from stored fat for energy, entering a state of ketosis.

During this your body relies on breaking down fat as its primary source of energy, leaning toward rapid fat burning and weight loss.

Unlike most keto diets the ideal protein diet also takes into consideration for preserving your muscle mass during weight loss by integrating high protein meals.

As muscles require more energy to sustain than fats, it supports maintaining a higher metabolic rate.

Also preserving muscle mass in general will give your body a more overall toned and slimmer look.

Insulin Regulation

The body easily digests refined carbohydrates and sugars, so it can spike up your blood sugar levels which triggers insulin release to lower the sugar level back down.

If you frequently have these spikes in sugar levels daily for prolonged amounts of time, it can lead to a condition called insulin resistance.

This is where your body becomes less responsive to insulin, causing your sugar level to constantly stay high, which can potentially lead to type 2 diabetes.

Therefore by cutting down carbohydrates, you will have significantly less raises in blood sugar and insulin levels daily.

Over time, It promotes insulin sensitivity (how well your body responds to insulin) and repairs its function.

Offer You Pre-made Meals

Ideal protein diet offers you a variety of pre-made meals which can have a lot of advantages.

Each meal comes in pre-portioned servings, ensuring you consume the right amount of protein, carbohydrates, and fats.

This allows you to consistently hit your macronutrient and calorie target each day, without going over your maintenance level.

Of course, you can cook your meals, however if you work full time or have a busy schedule, it can get tough to prepare meals every day while balancing out the nutrients and calories.

In this case, the pre-made meals are convenient and save you time.

Another benefit is that each ideal protein meal is labeled, making it easy for you to track your daily calories and nutrient intake.

Drawbacks Of Ideal Protein Diet

Not Suitable For Vegans

As mentioned on their website if you’re a vegan, this program is not suitable for you.

The reason is that the ideal protein relies heavily on animal-based proteins such as meats, eggs and dairy.

There are only small plant-based options like tofu or plant-based protein shakes to choose from.

Additionally, vegans need to pay special attention to meeting particular essential nutrients like vitamin B12, iron, calcium, and omega-3 fatty acids. The ideal protein may not provide adequate plant-based sources of these nutrients.

Can Make People Feel Sick

Some people may feel sick or experience some side effects when starting the program. Here are several potential reasons for this:

When your body moves into the ketosis state, you may experience something called the keto flu.

The reason is that the body is used to utilizing glucose as the primary source of energy since birth, so changing this pattern suddenly can throw off the body’s natural function~ causing symptoms such as headache, dizziness, nausea, tiredness, and constipation.

These symptoms will last until your body gets used to the new changes which can take a few days or even a couple of weeks.

As phase 1 gets you to drastically restrict your calories (800-1000 calories per day), there won’t be sufficient amount of resources as normal for your body to keep functioning optimally.

In this situation, you may face symptoms such as hair loss, fatigue, mood swings, sleep disturbance, and headaches.

FAQ

How Much Weight Can You Lose With Ideal Protein Diet?

The exact amount of weight that can be lost will vary depending on your body type. But during the first 2 weeks on average individuals have seen to lose around 4-8 pounds every week.

Afterward, you can expect to have a steady weight loss of 1-2 pounds per week.

How Much Does The Ideal Protein Diet Cost?

Normally there are four things you need to pay for, the initial consultation, program fee, ideal protein products, and supplements.

The cost of the program fee and initial consultation can vary depending on what clinics you go to.

But on average the cost of ideal protein products and supplements together is $21 per day.

Is Ideal Protein Diet Safe?

Even though the program is generally safe for everyone, you may face some side effects due to being in a ketosis state and restricting calories.

Some symptoms are headaches, dizziness, fatigue, mood swings, and sleep disturbance.

Where Can You Buy Ideal Protein Products?

You can purchase them through the clinic you sign up to, or you can directly buy them through their website.

Conclusion

The ideal protein diet is a low carbohydrate & fat and high protein weight loss program.

It works by switching your body’s normal function of using glucose as the primary source of energy to burning fat to produce ketone and using it as the main energy instead.

With the combination of calorie restriction and high protein food, it can promote rapid fat burn. The protein also helps to preserve your muscle mass~ preventing your metabolism from dropping.

There are three phases: Weight loss, Stabilization, and Maintenance. These are designed to create a perfect environment to lose weight fast and create a perfect plan to help you keep the weight off.

But you need to be wary of the fact that some individuals may face adverse effects while being on the program because of the ketosis state and calorie restriction